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No. 181.]

Mr. Uhl to Mr. Riddle.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
Washington, May 10, 1894.

SIR: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your No. 232, of the 20th ultimo, whereby you ask to be furnished with specific instructions as to the measure of protection to be accorded by the legation in the cases of Armenians who have become naturalized in the United States and return to travel in Turkey under the guise of Ottoman subjects.

The power of the agencies of the United States to protect American citizens in their just international rights can only be exercised in good faith and upon proof of the good faith of the party claiming protection. It is not to be abused by such duplicity as you report. As long ago as 1874 Mr. Fish said:

For a naturalized citizen may, by returning to his native country and residing there with an evident intention to remain, or by accepting offices there inconsistent with his adopted citizenship, or by concealing for a length of time the fact of his naturalization and passing himself off as a citizen or subject of his native country until occasion may make it his interest to ask the intervention of the country of his adoption, or in other ways which may show an intent to abandon his acquired rights, so far resume his original allegiance as to absolve the government of his adopted country from the obligation to protect him as a citizen while he remains in his native land." (Consular Regulations, 1874, paragraph 110.)

This Government does not hold to the doctrine of perpetual allegiance, nor does it contest the right of any citizen of the United States to voluntarily perform any act by which he may become a citizen or subject of a foreign state according to its laws. The return of a naturalized Turk to Turkey, as an Ottoman subject, under Turkish passport, and with submission to Turkish authority over him as a subject, clearly dissolves the obligation of his adopted country to protect him longer as a citizen, and the obligation can certainly not be revived by the assertion or admission of the individual that his reassumption of his original allegiance has been colorable merely and in bad faith, with deliberate intent to deceive. The agencies of the United States in Turkey can not be privy to such a deception.

From your statement it appears that Garabed M. Mourad hopes to return to and remain in Turkish jurisdiction as a Turkish subject until it may be convenient for him either to claim an American citizen's right to quit Turkey or to invite expulsion as an objectionable alien. In either case, upon his own showing, this Government could not contest any claim of Turkey to regard his resumption of Turkish allegiance as complete and to treat him as an Ottoman subject.

A person situated as Mr. Mourad is can only go to Turkey as a citizen of the United States or as a Turkish subject. It is impossible to permit any declaration he may make to the legation concerning his dual intentions to operate to recognize him secretly as a citizen of the United States while he at the same time outwardly passes for a Turkish subject.

You will inform Mr. Mourad that his statements made to the legation are outside of the case, and that should he at any time formally apply for protection the bona fides of his claim to have retained the character of an American will be rigidly scrutinized. As in the case of Aivasian and others, this Government has not only the right, but it is incumbent upon it, to satisfy itself that the person in question has done nothing while in Turkey to forfeit the right to be protected.

I am, etc.,

EDWIN F. UHL,
Acting Secretary.

No. 184.]

Mr. Uhl to Mr. Riddle.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
Washington, May 16, 1894.

SIR: I inclose for your information copy of correspondence recently exchanged with the Turkish Minister1 here touching the treatment of Turkish subjects naturalized abroad and returning to Turkey.

You will examine and report whether Turks naturalized in other countries receive the same treatment as those who become citizens of the United States.

It would appear from the ministerial note that exclusion or expulsion is resorted to as regards individuals according to the measure of their culpability; but in most of the cases reported during the last six months no allegation of culpability as revolutionists appears. The case of Mrs. Toprahanian and her minor children, at Alexandretta, is especially in point.

I am, sir, etc.,

EDWIN F. Uhl,

Acting Secretary.

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No. 258.]

Mr. Riddle to Mr. Gresham.

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,

Constantinople, June 29, 1894. (Received July 17.) SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your No. 184 of May 16, instructing me to "examine and report whether Turks naturalized in other countries receive the same treatment as those who become citizens of the United States;" and also inclosing an anonymous petition to the President, the most important statement in which is "that unnaturalized Armenians and Armenian citizens of countries other than the United States are allowed to return" to Turkey, while those naturalized in the United States are not.

This subject has already been treated in my dispatch No. 241 of May 10. In addition I may say that with regard to the naturalization of Turks in foreign countries, three different systems seem to prevail, caused by the fact that Turkey still holds to the doctrine of perpetual allegiance.

(1) In some countries, of which France is a type, a Turk is not admitted to citizenship unless he produces the evidence of the Imperial sanction to his change of nationality. In these countries all conflict of laws with Turkey concerning nationality is thus avoided.

(2) In Great Britain Turks may be naturalized without having obtained the Imperial consent, but they are no longer protected or considered as British subjects if they return to the Ottoman Empire. All British passports of naturalized citizens contain the following language: This passport is granted with the qualification that the bearer shall not, when within the limits of the foreign state of which he was a subject previously to obtaining his certificate of naturalization, be deemed a British subject, unless he has ceased to be a subject of that state in pursuance of the laws thereof, or in pursuance of a treaty to that effect.

Here, also, no conflict of laws arises between Turkey and Great Britain.

1 See page 759.

(3) The Government of the United States would seem to be the only one which admits Turks to citizenship without their having obtained the Imperial sanction, and in addition claims them as citizens in Turkey as well as in all other countries. Thus there is a conflict of laws between America and Turkey over all Turks naturalized in the United States without Imperial consent who return to the Ottoman Empire.

The statement "that unnaturalized Armenians and Armenian citizens of countries other than the United States are allowed to return is probably true, for the former have, of course, never ceased to be Turks, and the latter become Turks again as soon as they return, as they have never been given up by Turkey and are now no longer claimed by the country which naturalized them. Hence, whatever treatment they might receive when they returned to Turkey would not be made the subject of an official communication by a foreign power claiming them as citizens.

I have, etc.,

J. W. RIDDLE,

Chargé d'Affaires ad interim.

No. 305.]

Mr. Terrell to Mr. Gresham.

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, Constantinople, September 17, 1894. (Received October 6, 1894.) SIR: I have the honor to inform you that the rules governing naturalized subjects of the leading European powers who have been natives of Turkey, after their return to the Ottoman Empire, are more frequently found in instructions to diplomats resident here than in statutory enactments.

I find no dispatch from any of my predecessors which gives those rules, and for your convenience in reference, if not for your information, I give them now.

Germany naturalizes and protects in third countries; but, in 1883, instructed its consuls not to extend protection to those who were natives of the Ottoman Empire when they return to Turkey.

Italy instructs her diplomatic agents not to afford protection to her naturalized subjects who were natives of Turkey. She conforms substantially to the German rule.

England, under an act of Parliament, writes on the face of every passport that protection will be afforded its bearer in all countries except the country of his origin, if he left it without the consent of its sovereign.

Russia, like England, never protects a returning native of the Ottoman Empire who left it without an Imperial iradè. This rule does not apply to the natives of that portion of Asia Minor bordering the Black Sea and extending to the interior; that she acquired in her last war; and, whether Turks or Amenians, those natives became Russians by conquest and treaty, and are protected as native Russians when in a foreign land.

France never naturalizes a native of the Ottoman Empire born of Ottoman parents unless he produces an Imperial iradé or authorization, and will not protect him should he return to Turkey.

Austria does not naturalize a Turk who owns real estate in Turkey; she naturalizes others, and extends her protection in all countries except Turkey.

Belgium and Holland naturalize on the consent of the country, or sovereign of the country of origin.

I have not sought to ascertain the rule prevailing in the legations of Spain and Sweden, deeming it of small importance, but will do so if you desire.

It will thus be seen how little our doctrine of the right of voluntary expatriation is recognized by the rest of the civilized world in their dealing with Turkey.

In my last interview with the grand vizier he said, with earnestness, that Turkey would never consent that her subjects could change their nationality without the Sultan's consent. He added: "If war is ever made on us for this we could not help it, and would defend as best we could."

In view of the foregoing, I will be pardoned for submitting to your judgment the following, viz: "Whether our people are not prepared, by the influx from Europe of anarchy, socialism, poverty, crime, and dyna mite, to approve a reactionary policy on the whole doctrine of voluntary expatriation."

For about thirty years the questions of naturalization and of jurisdiction under article 4 of the treaty of 1830 have been subjects of contention. As often as there seemed to be the prospect of a new treaty, a change of administration, of a grand vizier, of a foreign minister of Turkey, or of a minister from the United States, compelled negotiations to begin de novo and no progress was made.

It is safe to assume that no new treaty can be made on either of the subjects of disagreement referred to which does not embrace both.

The anxiety at the Porte to have you adopt such a construction of article 4 of the treaty of 1830 as will conform to rule applied to subjects of European powers who are charged with crime, and will confer the jurisdiction on their own courts, will, when you can make some concessions, tend greatly to help forward a treaty of naturalization.

I have, etc.,

Mr. Gresham to Mr. Terrell.

A. W. TERRELL.

No. 251.]

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
Washington, October 20, 1894.

SIR: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your No. 305, of the 17th ultimo, in relation to the rules observed by foreign countries in the naturalization of Turks, and the bearing which the present policy of this Government has upon its relations with the Ottoman Porte.

The Government of the United States and the American people are too firmly committed to the principle of the right of expatriation to be willing to abandon it in our negotiations with the Ottoman Empire. The question has been so fully and ably discussed, notably in Mr. Bayard's instruction to your predecessor, Mr. S. S. Cox, under date of November 28, 1885,1 that it would seem unnecessary to repeat here the arguments in favor of the contention of this country beyond quoting the following passage:

The question is, in its broadest aspect, one of conflict between the laws of sovereign equals. The authority of one is paramount within its own jurisdiction. We reeognize expatriation as an individual right. Turkey, almost solely among nations,

1 Foreign Relations, 1885, p. 885.

holds to the generally abandoned doctrine of perpetual allegiance. Turkey can no more expect us to renounce our fundamental doctrine in respect of our citizens within her territory than she could expect to enforce her doctrines within the United States, by preventing the naturalization here of a Turk who emigrates without the authorization of an imperial irade.

As to the question of preventing the influx into the United States of aliens dangerous to the peace of the country, we must look to other means of excluding them than by abandoning the doctrine of the right of expatriation.

I am, etc.,

W. Q. GRESHAM.

CASES OF MR. AIVAZIAN AND MRS. TOPRAHANIAN.

Mr. Gresham to Mr. Terrell.

No. 119.]

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
Washington, January 6, 1894.

SIR: Your No. 1291 of 11th ultimo, and the copy therewith, have been received. It appears that Adam Aivazian, a naturalized American, is now in prison at Yozgad, on suspicion of conspiracy against the Turkish Government. He states that he resided ten years in this country, and about 1891-'92 went to Turkey on business, intending to return to America.

The case seems an especially hard one, as this man appears to intend honestly to conserve his American status by closing up his interests in Turkey and settling in California for life.

If there are charges against him, it would seem that he should be confronted with them and given a chance to make his defense. Prolonged imprisonment seems an unnecessary hardship, against which you can rightly protest.

I am, etc.,

W. Q. GRESHAM.

No. 169.J

Mr. Terrell to Mr. Gresham.

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,

Constantinople, January 27, 1894. (Received Feb. 14.) SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your No. 119 of the 6th instant, regarding the case of Adam Aivazian, confined at Yozgad in prison. Considerations of policy have restrained me from prompt action in this case, as in that of the parties at Alexandretta, who, though naturalized and charged with no crime, are refused permission to return to their homes in the United States.

*

2

I have been awaiting the slow action of the Porte, which would act favorably, but can not. The report to the grand vizier from Yozgad is that the man there is confined for assisting the escape of revolutionists, and has never claimed protection as an American citizen. That, I think, I understand; he is prevented by fear. If I can be furnished with a letter to the governor permitting my secretary to see the man I will send him to know the facts.

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